Land of Roots
by PureWaterLily
Summary: Just beyond the Land of Roots is a forest absent of sound. The travelers who step inside, rumors say, never come back.


**A/N:** For Valentine Ai. This gift is four years late, and I'm not sure if she's even on this site anymore but… whelp. I'm also pretty sure this isn't what she had in mind when she sent me the prompt but… double whelp.

.

It started with a photograph, edges dull and corners torn, the contours of dark grey against sepia. On the left was a man; the right, a woman. Nested in between were two bright smiles from a pair of siblings, one in the arms of the other.

The elder sister had her hair pulled back into two wire-tight braids, though her hair was loose now, and longer. Her cheeks and nose had become more defined with age, her eyes matured. Her smile was gone, replaced by a wet, quivering rage.

Her fists unclenched, before her forehead pressed against the pavement.

"Please!"

Sasuke left her alone on the sidewalk, the photograph tossed into the air.

.

Five days later, upon his return, "You have a guest."

In the lounge sat the world's last kunoichi. Pinched between her wrinkled fingers was a pipe, of which she used to sweep aside a curtain to the outside. "Poor girl's persistent," she continued. "Been kneeling outside my home since you left."

Sasuke gave the elderly woman no response, only unpacked the possessions he had collected from his latest journey. He tossed her a package.

Eyes closed, she inhaled the fresh aroma. "The silver needle." The edges of her lips crinkled into a smirk. "You shouldn't have."

He opened the cabinets, reaching past the electronic brewers in favor of a cast iron kettle.

They knelt on opposite sides of the table, two cups of tea steaming between them.

"Why don't you give her a chance, Sasuke."

His eyes met her blind ones.

"The person she seeks has been gone fifteen years. I am a keeper of peace, not a worker of miracles."

Time had not softened his voice, as blunt and biting as when they first met. While her hair had drained of its lifeblood, his remained as black as the night. While her movements had slowed, his never lost its momentum, its control or strength. Nothing is as transient as beauty, yet the greatest beauty of them all walks immortalized.

She rose. "No, you are the miracle."

At the threshold to her private chambers, she turned back to give her signature coquettish smile. It would be her last.

"Give her a chance."

The next morning, Sasuke found Karin cold. Unlike the others, she looked satisfied.

The funeral procession lasted twelve days, one for each decade she had protected the metropolis of Uzushio. At the port, Sasuke stared into the bleeding horizon, the blend of red against orange, pink against blue.

To the awaiting young woman, he accepted her photograph.

.

The train parted the water. She sat awkwardly, with her knees locked tightly and her backpack straddled on her lap. Though usually boisterous, the car today was unnaturally silent, all the passengers having pushed themselves to the peripheries. The businesspeople dared not open their phones. A basketball team held onto the ball. A cluster of school children shyly held onto their grab rails.

Uncomfortable by their stares, she turned to her company. Sasuke sat by her side, seemingly unaffected by the tight atmosphere, his eyes lost on the sea.

After another glance in his direction, she cleared her throat. "Um, Tenshi-sama, I, ah, I…"

"Don't call me that."

She winced. So did the rest of the crowd.

"I'm sorry, S-Sasuke-dono…?"

Sasuke broke his gaze from the window, in favor of sending her a lazy look. "Yes, Maki-dono?"

The sarcasm in his tone did not escape her, as she nervously clutched her backpack. "Sasuke-san," she tried again. When he did not interrupt, she continued, "Ah, Sasuke-san, I… I just wanted to express my gratitude. And to apologize for my behavior earlier. I realized I had been selfish and rude and- and-"

"What do you do?"

The question caught her off guard, resulting in the near drop of her bag. She closed her mouth. "What… what do I do? I, um, I'm currently an associate professor at Kikyō University. Combinatorial mathematics." Her lips pulled together into a tight, clumsy smile. Then, on reflex, "And you?"

Only after the words came out did she realize her mistake. She inwardly face palmed, because she did not just ask God what he does for a living.

Nonetheless, he responded. With a straightforward face, he said, "I help people find things."

At least it was not a cat this time.

.

They stepped off at the station of Konohana. The industrial city had softened from steel-hard grey into a blossoming pink, thousands of petals blanketing the streets and river.

At a stop light, bicycles and mopeds crisscrossed in less than orderly lines, the roar of engines intermixed with human cries and traffic. Maki half-dashed to keep up, her path marked by numerous horns and screeching rubber. She ignored their curses, focused on not losing sight of her travel companion.

She nearly bumped into him when he stopped before a building.

"Are you hungry?" he said.

The sun was low, the world tinted in warm hues. Workers had returned home, families gathered at the dinner table. Still, she could suppress her appetite. In her backpack was enough packaged bread to last a week. She could eat them while they walked.

Sasuke already stepped into the restaurant. He had not been asking for her input.

The host was a young man, with slicked brown hair and a pair of thick frames. Like the rest of the staff, he dressed in a button shirt and tight jeans, with a red logo stitched onto his left arm sleeve.

"Welcome, may we please request a twenty minute wait for your table?"

Maki accepted their tickets. Because all the lounge chairs were taken, Sasuke leaned against the wall, arms folded and eyes closed in meditation. She joined him, though the more she glanced around, the more excited she became.

"I love Ichiraku," she confessed. "Not here, I've never been to the main chain before, but the one in Tokushima. My favorite is the miso."

Sometime into their wait, the host dropped his menu. Stepping inside were familiar suits, familiar faces. The staff scrambled. Existing customers fumbled to get out their cameras for a picture, the noises within the restaurant elevating.

"Hayao-sama! Uoruto-sama! Please, right this way."

Enthralled by the sudden celebrity appearances, Maki almost didn't notice the call of her own name. She jumped when a separate waitress tapped her shoulder, beckoning them to their own table.

.

Outside the hotel window were the peaks of soaring towers, the distant turn of a ferris wheel, lights twinkling against a silhouette of black.

On the bed, Sasuke read one of the books from the nightstand.

The bathroom door opened. Maki stepped out, her cheeks rosy. A fluffy towel twisted up around her hair.

They had ten hours until the morning shuttle. Their hotel room, like most in Konohana, was equipped with a television set, though she too reached for the books, if only out of curiosity.

The titles were not particularly appealing, the same folklores and classics that children would read in school.

"Yes?"

Caught staring, Maki fell back, pillow clutched as shield. Sasuke did not look up from his book.

"I- ah. Good read?"

"No."

He flipped a page. She switched her gaze between him and the book in his hands.

"Oh," she said. "Bummer."

After a pregnant pause, she spoke again. "So Ichiraku... can you believe we caught Hayao and Uoruto of all people? I'm such a huge fan of their works. Like, I practically grew up on Shirayuki-hime so..." Her words trailed. "Do you… do you have any favorite films?"

"Fūun-hime no Dai Bōken."

"Oh! That's…! That's…" She scratched her head. "Is that new?"

"Old."

"Stencil?"

"Live."

She blinked. "Live. Live action. Wow, yes, that is… old. You are old." She closed her mouth. "Sorry, I mean that as a… as a comment, not as a… I mean, old is good! My ojī-san is old, and he-" She closed her mouth again. "I'll check it out next time I'm at a film store. Fūun-hime."

"They were made with chakra reel. You won't find a copy."

Another silence.

With a sigh, Sasuke set aside his book, knowing what she wanted to ask next.

"Don't do anything stupid," he warned.

She nodded furiously, hugging her pillow tighter.

With a snap of his finger, a flame kitten burst out, landing on the bed. The color of fire was unlike any she had seen before, darker than black and colder than ice. And when the kitten yawned, there was no sound, only the shiver one would feel after the melancholic pluck of a shamisen.

The yōkai curled up on Sasuke's lap, ears twitching with delight as he ran his fingers across her fur.

"What… what's her name?"

"Matatabi."

Sasuke retracted his hand, unburnt, and the kitten disappeared in a wisp of smoke.

.

The shuttle stopped at the center of Sora-ku, home of the first transcontinental railroad.

The outside scenery changed from greens and hills to wetlands and rivers, then finally to an endless desert. Inside their private compartment, Maki leaned forward on the table, her coffee forgotten.

"Then there really was a war."

"Not as how you conceive of it. But yes."

"And the warlords, Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara, they were real?"

"They were real."

"Wow. That's just… wow. What were they like?"

Sasuke considered the question for a moment. "Strange. Delusional. One stabbed me with a sword."

There was no change of expression or inflection of tone to indicate he was joking.

"He… stabbed you? I- I'm so sorry. I didn't know that. Um, it's just… the films, I had the impression that-" She jumped when their compartment door opened, the attendant wheeling a cart of food and beverages.

.

The train continued to spear across the landscape, dunes of sand turning copper, redder and coarser. Arid plant-life began to spot the plains, canyons encircling the distant horizon. Then night descended once more, leaving the world empty except for the stars above.

Buried under the covers of her pull-out bed, Maki said, "You know, I think our attendant likes you."

"The blonde?"

"No, no, the second one. With the goatee." At his silence, she explained. "Melon punch comes from a can. They're always cold. He must have personally boiled that for us."

There was a thud on their table. Maki squinted to see something under his mug, faintly making out the colors of a hundred ryō bill within the folds of a napkin.

"You married?" she asked.

"No," he said. "You?"

"Oh, no, no. No. I mean, I had a boyfriend two years ago, but he got a job in a different city, so… yeah, that was that. Now I'm just in this, um, kinda complicated thing with my roommate and…" She beckoned the issue away. "I'm open to the idea, but I think I, ah, I need to figure out my current family situation before… before, you know, trying to build a new one. Does that make sense, sorta?"

Sasuke closed his eyes.

"It does."

.

It had been a monsoon. The flood had destroyed everything. The bridges, the roads, the pier. With no other options, the townspeople scavenged what remained of their possessions and fled into the forest, up the mountains, and hopefully to the other side.

Up until then, no one dared step inside the forest. It was banned by the local temple as sacred lands. But the waters were rising, and they had no options.

Maki had a backpack of some essentials: documents, money, and the family photo album. Holding onto her hand was her sister, as they pushed through a blinding field of bamboo. Everything blurred-the rattle of the leaves, the crunch under their feet, the shouts and cries of their parents and neighbors.

Maki was so focused on escaping the flood, she failed to notice when voices began to dim, no longer as numerous as before. She failed to notice when her mother stopped shouting at her to hurry, when her father stopping asking if they were okay.

The ground was getting wetter, her shoes splashed in ochre yellow. And the bamboo, it was so dense, Maki spent all her efforts trying to clear them from sight.

Only on her third unreturned call did she realize something was wrong.

Hand in hand, she and her sister would call again and again.

But their mother did not reply.

Their father did not reply.

Their neighbors did not reply.

They stood still, wondering how quiet the world had become. So quiet they could hear every inhale of each other's breaths, the sways of their backpack straps, the ripples under their feet.

Maki panicked. She was not thinking. She released her hand for the faintest of a second, their fingers barely a hair apart.

But that second was enough for the forest to take away her sister too, as when she refound her grip, her fingers found nothing but air.

The breath she heard from then on was her own.

Only her own.

.

They were close now. Sasuke noticed his usually chatty companion had quieted, her thoughts lost and her muscles tense.

Before long, they stood in front of a battered chain fence. It separated the pedestrian road from the forest beyond. Locks and chains weaved across a lone gate, the mouth to a narrow path that spiraled out of sight.

Several police officers were shooing away tourists. Despite Maki's protests, the officers were adamant on pushing her away too.

"Wait, no, you don't understand, I'm from Ashihara!"

"Move along, ojō-san. This area is prohibited."

"But-!"

"Omawari-san, I advise you to let her go."

All eyes turned to the newcomer. On the road was a bespectacled man in a fleece jacket, cheeks shrunken and white hair wisping in the autumn wind. A battered accordion folder peaked out from the basket of his bicycle.

"Hidekichi-sensei, what are-"

"You don't read very much, do you, omawari-san. Look at her companion."

They did. Sasuke did not spare them a look, only holding the gate open in waiting. A serpentine of chains rested at his feet, the locks miraculously intact.

Noticing his sword sheath, the officers let Maki go as if burnt. Only one person in the world held the rights to own such a weapon.

The professor shook his head. "Pardon their intrusion in your affairs, Sasuke-sama." He offered a sincere smile, a gesture of welcome and the first in a long time. "Please let us know if we may be of any assistance."

To him, Sasuke made a brief eye contact, before turning his back. Maki was quick to follow, glancing back at the gate once and never again. She made her decision.

The officers watched them disappear down the winding path. Finally, one dared pick up his befallen hat.

"Well, bless my soul."

.

The road swerved higher and higher, up the mountainside. Maki held her breath, as a familiar stone stairwell emerged before her. Only this time, instead of the tumbling descent in her memories, she would be making her ascent.

Sensing her unease, Sasuke extended a hand.

At least this time, she was not alone. Controlling her shaking, she accepted his hand. Together, they passed the first torii in sight.

Then, the second.

Finally, the third.

On the third passing, a whisper brushed past Sasuke's ear. His fingers twitched.

However, it was already too late.

They were in free fall. His free palm opened, and six translucent wings burst out into the air.

A sharp, oscillating noise deafened Maki's ears, as a monstrous insect made a U-turn. The yōkai caught them mid-air, breaking their five kilometer plummet into the earth below.

On unsteady feet, Maki refound her footing on land. The yōkai who carried them had shrunk, the razored limbs and armor replaced by the mild caterpillar-like creature curled atop Sasuke's palm. The yōkai made gestures with her stumpy legs.

"What is she saying?" Maki asked.

"The chakra in this area is abnormal," he translated. "It's interfering with her receptors."

"Chakra?" Maki surveyed the forest around them. "But I thought- I thought you… There is no more chakra except for _you_. Right?"

"Chakra was not removed from the world. The wheel was."

"Wheel?"

"Chakra is a state of the universe; it cannot be created nor destroyed. But the power to harness it..." Sasuke gave her a tired look. "That was to die with the past and never reborn into the future."

The surrounding silence was absolute, without even a single lift of wind. This was a place without life. It was also a place without death. A place without past and without future. Something had caused chakra to pool here, as stagnant as the waters beneath their feet, unable to flow into the cycle of the universe.

The yōkai shivered.

"She advises us to find what we seek quickly and not linger. Too long a stay inside this place will bring ill fortune."

Maki nodded, watching the caterpillar disappear in the same fashion as the fire kitten.

.

The mountains were vast and never ending. The atmosphere was too damp to keep a fire of meaningful size. At night, Sasuke watched his companion sleep, nested in the arms of his ape-beast. The ape's four tails hugged around her like a blanket, his breaths hot like the air from a kettle.

The more Sasuke understood of these woods, the more he understood what a miracle it was for her to have escaped. Or the extent of her courage to return. It was often easier to forget nightmares than to confront them.

And yet, she chose not to forget, clutching onto photograph after photograph, because buried alongside the screams and the terror was also something precious. Something precious worth remembering.

The night lightened to dawn.

A visitor appeared.

.

Son Gokū untensed after seeing his master remain calm. He reclosed his eyes in rest.

"What are you thinking?" Itachi finally asked, kneeling by Sasuke's side.

It took Sasuke all of his willpower to look at his brother, and even more to look away.

"What it means for something to flow."

"That was not what I expected."

"Oh?"

"You had never been one for philosophy."

"I've had too much time on my hands."

Itachi chuckled. He raised his head, watching the changing colors of the sky.

"What's it like out there?"

The food had gotten better. The noise had gotten worse. Moving from place to place had gotten easier. Finding a home had gotten harder.

They had been right. Jutsus were never a necessity. In the place of chakra was human ingenuity. Machines fulfilled many day-to-day needs, leaving people with more time to invent things that entertained themselves.

Sasuke told him about the drawings that move. How they were used to tell stories about talking mice and ducks and lions that would become kings. Right now they were focusing on princesses and heroes in suits.

"And the people?"

"The women have become as loudmouthed as the men. The men have become as whiny as the women. When they're not busy irritating each other, they're irritating me."

Itachi looked away. His laugh quieted to a smile that suffocated Sasuke softly.

"I… tried to bring you back," Sasuke whispered, his head low. "I went to the other side to find you. But you were already gone." He looked at his brother. "And now, unspeakable years later, after I had finally given up, I find a piece of you here, stuck in a fucking bog."

Itachi shrugged. "It's more of a swamp."

"It's a _bog_."

A soft smile. A sad smile.

.

They reached the heart of the forest. Maki sat cross-legged on a shell back, Sasuke's turtle-beast slowly swimming them through the lazy waters. Stalks of bamboo came and went, sinking into the water, floating into the skies.

Slowly surrounding them were lights, fading in and out of existence. There was a mysterious delight to them, an incomprehensible type of beauty.

She brought her fingers up for a touch.

"What are they?"

"Souls."

Maki froze.

"My family…?"

"Maybe."

She looked around. There was a sea of them, lighting the water with colors of every kind. "Ashihara… isn't that big."

"No. Many came from elsewhere."

"Where?"

"Everywhere." Like the water in rain. "Until this area is drained, they're trapped here along with the chakra."

"And after they're freed?"

"They reenter the cycle. They rejoin the living."

Maki stared at him, mouth open. "Like r-reincarnation?" She looked out into the water again, her hand clutching a jagged spike of the turtle shell for balance. "Reincarnation is real?! We all come back?!"

"Yes..."

Before she could laugh in joy, he closed his eyes.

"...and no."

Once a cup of water has been returned to the ocean, it becomes a part of the ocean. Trying to draw back the same cup is as foolish as it is futile.

Sasuke would know.

He was the fool who tried.

.

Three figures stood in the distance.

Isobu stopped. This was as far as Sasuke went.

Maki turned to ask if it was okay. He nodded.

She removed her bag. She removed her shoes next and placed them where she sat. Isobu leaned to the side to ease her descent.

With the lift of a finger, Sasuke sent a wave of energy rippling through the water. Yelping, Maki clutching onto the shell harder, her hair blown.

When she looked down, the water had… changed. She tested a toe, then her whole foot.

She was walking on top of the water.

She was walking.

Then she was running.

One of the three figures in the distance separated and also began to run.

"Nē-chan?"

"Midori!"

"Nē-chan?!"

"I'm here, Midori, I'm here! Your stupid nē-chan is here. She's finally h-here." Maki fell to her knees, her arms wrapped in an embrace. This time, she wouldn't let go.

.

Itachi watched the young woman with the folded arms. She knelt, unmoving, surrounded by lights. Many beautiful lights, and many more to come, spiraling, dancing.

He glanced to his side.

"You're going to do something foolish."

It was an observation, not a judgment.

Sasuke gave a dry smile.

The world would just have to get used to having a foolish God.

.

"_... a miracle. After fifteen years missing, eighty-two citizens of the lost town of Ashihara reemerged from the forbidden Jukai forest this morning. They appear unharmed, and even more astonishingly, unaged. Stay tuned for more on the report this afternoon at three._

"_In other news, Uoruto Studios and Masaru Sonī have confirmed their collaboration for the new Supaidāman shounen sequel. Fans worldwide…_"

.

Maki slammed her forehead against the pavement. "Thank you, Sasuke-sama, for reuniting my family!"

By her side, Midori mimicked the action. "Yes, thank you, Sasuke-sama."

Sasuke gave up on correcting them. Before he could make his leave, Maki rose up.

"Wait!"

Sasuke waited.

Maki looked back at her family and friends, who nodded back encouragingly. "Um, we… we all made a really big dinner, with like pork roast and melon soup and... well, we couldn't agree on what you'd like, so we just put together every old recipe from ojī-san-" In the back, an old toothless man waved his hand. "-and well, we'd be honored if you'd join us."

"Honored if you join us," Midori repeated, nodding seriously. She blinked at the hand on her head.

Sasuke smiled.

.

Once a cup of water has been returned to the ocean, it becomes a part of the ocean.

And so, it becomes a part of every cup drawn thereafter.

End.


End file.
